Do you get bored setting up your perspective lines when drawing a landscape or cityscape? Want to save time and get back to the fun part – drawing?!

Well, thanks to Johnny Quan, a member of DigiPaint, the Facebook critique and resource network I founded for Academy of Art University members, I learned about a fantastic tool today which was developed by FreddieArtMedia at DiGi Art QuickTools. And even better, it’s free! So, with thanks to his generosity and a nod to his awesome work, I’m sharing it here with you! Go to Digi-Art QuickTools here or here to download and then view the tutorial below. Enjoy!

I work mainly in digital realistic and painterly styles, but upon request I can work in either comic book or animation styles.

Q: What’s that?
A: Full color head & shoulders of any character OR real life people if you have a good quality reference of front/side/3quarter.

Q: What do I need to provide?
A: Several good images of the character, plus a description of their personality, OR one good image of the real person and descriptions of their personality. If the subject is a real person, you’ll need the rights to the photo too (if you took the photo yourself, or have permission from the photographer).

Q: Then what happens?
A: I scurry away and sketch up an outline. I’ll show it to you and you can make your comments and I’ll tweak it. Once you’re happy with that, I’ll color and detail it in my painted style. I can’t accept revisions after it’s done, since portraits are quick and cheap. Unless, of course, it’s my own fault for getting something wrong that was clearly shown in the reference.

Q: What can I do with the image?
A: Print it, hang it up, stick it on your fridge, anything you like…just don’t make money off it or use it to create new artwork. If you post it online, I would also ask for credit when and where possible.

Q: What will you do with the image?
A: I’ll add it to my portfolio and use it for promoting my work.

Q: What else should I know?
A: I retain ownership of the final artwork and reserve the right to display it on my website, portfolios, and submit it to magazines or artbooks. It will however never be sold, used for profit, or licenced to another without your approval. You may use the image for non-profit purposes only unless agreed otherwise. Full licence agreement is available on request.

Q: I am totally cool with all that. How much?
A: Portraits……$50 US
Waist Up…….$70-$80 (Depending on costume and pose complexity)
Full body……$90-$100 (Depending on costume and pose complexity)
Scenes………$160+ (Depends on background detail, number of characters, size)$40 via Paypal.

If you want two characters in an image, double the price and subtract $10. For scenes, it’s generally $50 per extra character (eg. a three character scene would be $260).

Contact Me first describing what you would like for your commission. Please provide a detailed description of the character (pose, appearance, costume, personality) and any visual references or inspiration. For commissions of real-life people, provide either one photo (I will reference it directly, guarantees likeness) or many quality photos from multiple angles (I will use them to figure out face shapes, results in unique image but may not be perfect likeness). I can then price your commission and you can return here to purchase it.

Commissions are first come, first served. Most artworks are completed within two weeks

I accept payments through Paypal only. 50% of payment is due upon approval of sketch (except for portraits, full payment is due upon approval of the sketch). Remainder must be paid before full-resolution 300dpi image is provided. Due to the fluctuating exchange rate all values are in US dollars.

I created this three-part storyboard as an education project based on The Ninth Gate (1999) in Photoshop CS3 with a Intuos3 4×5 Wacom Tablet in the spring of 2010. The focus of the project was on quickly employing storyboard conventions like visual direction for camera movement and breaking down the camera shots for a director and crew. I learned a lot through this project about the craft of visual storytelling.

Step 9: Make a new layer called Charcoal above the Sketch layer but below all of the painted layers. Select the Charcoal brush and a charcoal pencil variant and fill in the outlines to add definition. Feel free to leave some areas on the outside without charcoal.

Add a new layer called Dragon Details above Dragon Overpaint and below Cannon Underpaint. Select the FX brush and the glow variant and a very light yellow, almost white. Adjust the opacity to your liking but keep it pretty light, don’t overdo it. Now, like you would with an airbrush, add some shine to that dragon! Remember, it’s not supposed to look like a living dragon, it’s metal painted to look like a dragon, so it should be shiny. Notice I’ve added the shine to areas that would be hit with direct light along the curves, like where the fringe folds back and along the body and tail of the dragon. It’s starting to make the skin look iridescent.

Step 10: To make those spokes really shine, start with making a Cannon Detail layer. Load your selection of the spokes in the Sketch layer and go back to Cannon Detail. Now use the FX brush and glow variant and widen the size of the brush. Make broad zig-zag stokes across the spokes, and voila! Repeat as necessary on different areas of metal to show they aren’t all on exactly the same plane.

To create very light outlines around the edges of the spokes, use the Pen tool and draw along those edges. Then select a thin brush with 100% opacity and a light yellow. Click Align to Path in the upper left of the toolbar and draw with your paint brush along the path you drew with the pen.

To create round-headed nails, make just one with three gold colors ranging from dark to medium to light with a small opaque brush. Start with the middle color and then add a dark and light side to it (light side on the left, where the light would hit it). Now use the Oval Selection tool and copy and paste it repeatedly along the wood supporting the cannon and where each spoke meets the wheel.

Step 11: Repeat the selection process for the sections of the barrel of the cannon that will now be painted with fire. Do not select the separations between the segments of the barrel. Create a new layer called Flames and begin painting there. Remember that fire goes from blue to red to yellow in order of intensity, so start with blue at the base of the dragon’s mouth where it would be hottest. Don’t worry about being all that realistic, it’s supposed to look like paint. Go wild with it!

If you decide that you’ve chosen colors that were just too bright and overpowering for the whole piece, like I did, then there is something you can do to fix that. Go to Effects:Tonal Control:Brightness/Contrast and adjust them. Lowering the brightness and contrast should help the fire painting blend with the rest of the dragon.

Now, keep those selections open, we’re going to add dimension to the flames. Select the soft airbrush variant of the Airbrush bush and the darkest grey you’ve used. Select size 40 and 10% opacity. Lightly brush the bottom and top of the barrel and the inside of the dragon’s mouth, more so on the very bottom edge. Then, switch to one of your lightest white-yellows and make no more than two strokes over the middle of the barrel to give it the flames a shine. Now it should look like this:

Step 12: This step is optional. You can sign your painting by making a new layer called Signature. Then draw or type your name and position it where you like. If you want, you can rotate your signature by going to Edit: Transform: Rotate; or Edit: Free Transform, hold down on Command and rotate by the corner of the selection.

If you would like the see the final piece, you can visit it in my portfolio here! And if you liked this tutorial, please comment and share it!

Introduction: For a quick view of the Howitzer Dragon Cannon, summary of the goals for this piece, how the reference photos were chosen (and the history behind them), see the Howitzer Dragon Cannon in my portfolio. There I go into more detail on why I selected the reference photos in Step 1 (in short, to make a plausible artillery piece for a fantasy or steampunk setting).

Below is a step-by-step tutorial for how you can create your own howitzer dragon cannon and make your digital image look like an oil painting with thin charcoal accents. This tutorial will introduce you to some of Corel Painter 11’s features and include tips on how to save time and produce artistic effects easily.

Step 1: Choose your Reference Photos. I chose a howitzer cannon with a shield at a 3/4 turn towards the viewer. The wheels were particularly interesting to me, which combined with the lever in the rear, made this particular cannon easily mauverable. But most importantly, the shield will lend itself well to blending with the second reference photo of a frill lizard. It will be a lot easier of you choose two compatible reference photos when making a new piece of art that will be a blend of them. I chose a picture of a frill lizard that was also at a 3/4 turn and rearing up a little. I could flip the photo into a mirror image, but for this project, all I need to see is the basic shape of the lizard’s head and frill. I can imply that the fore-claws will be wrapped around the axel and covered by the frill.

Howitzer Cannon Reference

Frilled Lizard Reference

Step 2: Initial sketch. I created the initial sketch in Photoshop, but you can choose to begin directly in Painter (see below). To make your sketch in Photoshop, open the howitzer cannon as a new file, then make a new transparent layer. Make sure to lock the Reference layer, sketch only in your Sketch layer, and label the two appropriately. You do not want to draw directly on the reference photo or you will wind up doing a lot of erasing later on or start over. The screen shot below includes how to arrange your layers, a dark color, and a thin brush. It also helps to turn the grid on by going to View:Show:Grid.

If you are sketching directly in Painter then you’ll have the same basic goal and principles, just applied differently. In Corel, you can open the reference photo and click File:Quick Clone. This will lay a translucent (semi-transparent) sheet of canvas over your reference photo to draw on. Adjust how transparent this canvas is by holding down on the topmost icon of the two squares overlapping above the vertical scroll bar. To toggle the tracing paper off, just click that icon once. Choose a thin solid brush, like a Pencil or Pen variant. To view the grid, click the icon of a grid, also above the vertical scroll bar.

Step 3: Open your sketch (created with Photoshop) inside Corel Painter as its own layer above the canvas and label it Sketch. Don’t worry, Painter will preserve Photoshop’s layers. Just go to File:Open and find your Photoshop file. You can hide (click the eyeball in the layers pallet) or delete (click the trashcan in the layers panel) your reference photo layer now. Note that this step does not apply if you made your sketch in Painter. Lock your Sketch layer down.

Step 4: Color your canvas (or tracing paper) with the Color Picker tool. Choose a color from the color wheel, by mixing in the pallet, or by sampling an image of your choice. I chose a solid parchment color because this would allow both light and dark values to show off the artwork best (and it suggests the kind of unbleached paper that might appear in a game this prop would be used in). I’ve included my color set in the screen shot in Step 5, and you can view the color swatch codes, or contact me for the file. The result of the colored canvas layer and the sketch on a transparent layer is this:

Step 5: If you’ve worked with conventional paint, you’ll be familiar with this concept of creating an underpainting. The goal at this step is to create a new layer under the sketch that is shaded with dark opaque blue-green colors. Later, the overpainting will have translucent yellow overtones which together will give the dragon depth and realism to the skin. Remember, this should look like a painting of a dragon on a 3D object, and the person who would have painted it in-game would have used this traditional technique.

Note that all of the dragon layers are separate from the cannon layers. This is because different parts overlap and obscure each other (like the foreground wheel over the dragon) and we want the freedom to have full and complete brushstrokes on the dragon without having to later erase the parts that wouldn’t be visible. Also, if we make a mistake on either the dragon or the cannon, it’s an easy fix in its own layer.

First set up brush tracking so that your stylus will respond to your particular strokes. Go to Corel Painter 11: Preferences: Brush Tracking and make a sample stroke at the speed and pressure you’ll be using for the underpainting. Feel free to repeat this step as you use light, sharper, more detailed strokes.

Create a new layer called: Dragon Underpaint and file it below the Sketch layer. Choose the Oils brush and a variant like Flat Oils or Fine Camel Hair. Experiment by trying different brushes in a clear area of the canvas and see which you prefer. Make loose strokes and follow the form of the dragon. Don’t worry about being too realistic, in-game this would be a painted decoration on the cannon, not a living animal.

Step 6: Create a new layer called Dragon Overpaint above Dragon Underpaint and below Sketch. Notice I chose yellows and yellow-whites for this layer? I’ve switched to a thinner smeary brush variant with lower opacity and detailed areas that would be exposed to light. The main source of light comes from about 10 o’clock but there is also light coming from about 4 o’clock. This means that the exposed ridges on the dragon’s face, frill, body, legs, and tail all have higher concentrations of yellow, particularly yellow-white. In some places I’ve added off-white at higher opacity with a thin brush to imply a shine. Lastly, I’ve used some dark blue-green and feathered in shadows on the dragon behind the foreground wheel.

Step 7: Here I’ve cleaned up the image and added more details. I’ve erased the parts of the dragon on both the Under and Overpaint layers to get a sense of what would appear from behind the wheel. I’ve also colored the teeth, eyes, and added a yellow brow decoration. I’ve added yellow to other areas of the dragon to create more depth.

Step 8: Now we’re getting to the fun part. Make two new layers above the dragon layers called Cannon Underpaint and Cannon Overpaint respectively. Lock the dragon layers. In Cannon Underpaint we’re going with deep reddish-bown and dark gold colors to compliment the blue-green of the dragon. Choose a flat 100% opacity setting for your brush.

But first, before you paint, there’s an easy way to select the areas you want to paint and isolate them within the same layer. Go to the Sketch layer and select the magic wand tool. In this layer, you are selecting part of the sketch so click on the area you’ll want to paint. Edit: With the lasso tool you can add to or subtract from an active selection by holding down the Shift key and drag with the Lasso, or hold down on the ALT/Option key and drag. Hold down the shift key if you want to add more sections. In this case below, only some of the spokes were selected with one click, so I held down the shift key and clicked on more spokes. Then do not paint in the Sketch layer, instead click back to the layer you were painting in (in this case, Cannon Underpainting). Keep that Sketch layer locked throughout the rest of the tutorial.

Edit: I recommend turning your selections into layer masks to save time on your project. Selections can be saved as Channels (or Layer Masks if you prefer) which you can return to without having to make your selections by hand a second time. Layer Masks can also be edited with brushes or special effect commands, giving you a lot of options. To turn a selection into a Layer Mask/Channel, choose Select, Save Selection, or click the Save Selection as Channel button at the bottom of the Channels palette. Then you can load the mask as a selection later on in your project.

To make the textures of the wood below: Select sections of wood you’ll be painting in one brush stroke (either by hand or using a Layer Mask), like the very front of the cannon. Go to your Cannon Overpaint layer. Then in the mixing pad, take dark reddish brown, red, light brown, and mix them just a little bit. Select the Sample Multiple Colors option there (with the size you want to sample) and the dirty brush. Use a smeary or clumpy brush at about 70-80% opacity and make one broad stroke over the plank of wood you selected. You may want to command-Z and redo this a few times until you have the angle of “grain” you want.

To lay the foundations for the shiny spokes, use the same method but with gold colors on them. This time, instead of brushing with the direction of spokes, brush in a spiral outward from the center of the wheel. Use the same technique with the dark grey barrel, but include very dark greys on either side and very light grays in the middle. Use the Selecte Multiple Colors tool in the mixing pad to make a gradient and use the Dirty Brush setting before going back to the canvas.

I’m a freelance artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area and I work in traditional watercolor, ink, and digital paint. I’ve worked in industries like table-top games, book covers, and fine art. I’m passionate about visual storytelling because I believe that stories are even more powerful than facts; and as artists, we have the awesome power to inspire, build empathy, and lift people up. That’s why my mission is to create artwork that empowers you to reach your dreams!